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MTG – for nerds eyes only

by uhbeautifuldisaster

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MTG – for nerdy eyes only

Magic the Gathering is the first trading card game played by 12 million players in 2011. (Wiki)

I was hooked by the eloquent art work. Imagine a multiuniverse where you resurrect glorious lands covered in volcanic mountains or islands, you are a PLANES WALKER, summoning creatures and casting spells to gain victory!!

Today I’ll provide you a deck so you can start winning duels. I’m going to tell you about what you’ll see on the card, the phases in a turn, the different types of cards and colours, and show you how combat damage is calculated. Stay with me lovelies, there is so much excitement in this classy trading card game.

The Different Colors & Card Types

There are (5) colors representing the land types you control. Black for swamp. Black cards are about destruction, sacrifice, winning at all costs. White for plains. White cards are your support cards, these are all about healing, peace, and vigilance. Blue for island cards. Blue decks are manipulative. Green for forest; green cards stand for growth and nature and massive beasts. Red represents mountain cards. Red decks are destructive, fiery bad tempered, and spontaneous.

fig. 1

Above are pictures of each land. Land is your mana cost, each card you’ll want to play will tell you how many lands you have to ‘tap’ in order to cast that card.

IDK how well the resolution is here but hopefully you can see that in a bar below the picture it tells you if you’re holding a creature, enchantment, spell, or artifact. Everything you need to know is on the card.

Creatures – you can summon as many creatures that you have the mana cost for. For example, in figure 2 Disciple of the Old Ways can only be summoned by tapping (1) forest land & (1) of any other land.

You can put enchantments on your creatures to give them special abilities. If I enchanted Disciple of the Old Ways with the enchantment in the figure above, Commander’s Authority, then at the start of my every turn, I get to summon a white human token creature with 1/1.

(Don’t be afraid of the fraction. We’ll cross combat damage when we get there.)

Artifacts are like bad ass enchantments. They can change the shape of the whole playing field. The one above is a mystic rare. (Cards are rated by their uniqueness, don’t worry too much about that yet my dear.) Instants are spells that can be played during your turn or your opponent’s turn. A Sorcery can only be cast during your turn. Up above I put down Murder which embodies the black deck if you ask me. And Ponder which sums up how controlling blue decks are.

Phases & Combat Damage

The game begins with each player drawing 7 cards. No more than 7 is allowed in your hand during game play. If you do not like your hand, you can mulligan, a term used to discard your hand into your deck and draw 6 cards instead. First player cannot draw a card. Players start with 20 lifepoints. The object is to attack each other’s lifepoints, and players summon creatures to defend themselves with. The card will tell you if your creature can defend you against other flying creatures, or maybe you have a fairy card that can only block other creatures with flying. OR maybe you played a wolf that is unblockable. As you play, it’s easy to imagine giant turtles for defenders and dragons flying over the giant snapping turtles.

Each turn you want to put a land card if you can. Limit one per turn. The beginning of your turn is called your upkeep. The main phase begins right after you draw a card, usually players drop down a land card if you have one. During this phase its acceptable to play any card. During combat, you have to imagine a fantasy dual between your creatures and the enemy.

Below is an example. If I declare an attack against player, that player has to choose who to defend with. (You can also choose not to defend and instead take damage directly to your lifepoints.)

I’m attacking with my Guardian Lions. see at the bottom right hand corner? 1/6. The first number is his power, which is the damage you can do. The second number is his toughness, which is the damage you can take.That means he can defend himself from creatures that have a power of 6 or less.

Because neither creature has First Strike (an ability just like the lion’s Vigilance) each creature does the damage at the same time. The elf would go in the graveyard, having done one damage to the lions. That makes the lions a 1/5 until the end of the turn.

Here are 3 more examples for combat damage:

Here are three very powerful creatures. Starting from the bottom we have a vampire featuring Deathtouch, an ability that is dominant in green and black cards.

Our Vampire Nighthawk controls a power and toughness of 2/3, however, his Deathtouch ability makes more of an auto kill with 3 toughness.

Lord of the Void controls a power and toughness of 7/7

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight controls a power of 5/5 and First strike

We will now go through a combat scenario involving all of the above.

Vampire Nighthawk v. Lord of the Void–

-Both are to die because our Vampire Nighthawk kills Lord with his Deathtouch ability, also since during combat each creature deals its damage simultaneously Lord of the Void is able to use his 7 power to destroy the Vampire Nighthwawk…our poor Lord of the Void subdued by Deathtouch.

Vampire Nighthawk v. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight–

-In this confrontation Vampire Nighthawk will be unable to use his Deathtouch ability, since Gisela has First Strike she deals her 5 power’s worth of damage to Vampire Nighthawkbefore he can deal his damage simultaneously.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight v. Lord of the Void-

-Surely our Lord of the Void will be able to triumph just once with his massive power of 7, perhaps even tend with Gisela’s First Strike capability. Indeed Lord of the Void would kill Gisela even with her First Strike ability, after she deals her 5 damage first Lord of the Void would strike back with 7 damage surviving by 2. In this case though our Gisela, Blade of Goldnight will be victorious because of her slightly better mythic rare ability which is…”If a source would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, that source deals double that damage to that player or permanent instead.”…translated that means that her First Strike ability has actually been hitting with 10 this whole time not 5. The second part of her ability is the opposite, allowing half the damage to you or permanent you control.

– More combat scenarios are always developing in Magic, including more abilities and spells that alter the game in any way possible.

THERE YOU GO!

ENOUGH INFO TO START YOUR QUEST TO JOIN MAGIC THE GATHERING!! if i get enough likes, i’ll post a beta-standard deck for shits & giggles.